Introducing Defend

Trust has always been a foundational component of the Proof and Notarize brands. In a world where most processes are being brought online, we make it our mission to ensure that you can trust any individual who you are working with to complete critical transactions. 

Unfortunately, with the rise of new technologies, we’ve hit a point where simply vetting your customer by verifying a credential isn’t enough. You need to continuously monitor their identity across the lifecycle of their relationship with your business. It’s become commonplace for a bad actor to purchase a government ID online, with their own picture, for less than $15. In most cases, this ID is going to appear legitimate and pass basic pressure testing. Before you know it, you’re left to clean up the mess of a fraud claim, costing your business significant time and money. 

While you may “know” your customer, you probably have never met them in real life. They’ve never been into your office and met you face to face. So how do you know when you receive signed documents or the next time they login, that it’s really them? This is the reason that  businesses are under attack. Fraudsters are stealing a client’s password, logging into their email, signing documents and impersonating a person without anyone knowing.  The next time you receive a paper or a digital document, you might have to stop and think, can I trust this? 

Falsified records and identity theft is a $81B problem in the US. Businesses must rely on the integrity of their records because they use them to execute on critical transactions for their customers. Whether that’s wiring money, withdrawing funds, adding aa new beneficiary, creating a trust, or transfering the title to a property. These are life impacting transactions, and in the wrong hands, they can be life ruining. 

When a buyer swipes a credit card, payment networks are protecting merchants and consumers from stolen credits and fraud. But why hasn’t the industry been doing the same, every time you sign, notarize or authorize critical documents? Up until now there hasn’t been a signature platform that has fraud detection built-in. And this is why there’s a problem with forgery and impersonation, regardless if it’s being done digitally or on paper. Proof is the first signature platform to be detecting fraud and forgery every time a customer signs on the dotted line. This is why we built Defend over the last two years.

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What we built with Proof 

Our company started as a online notarization company more than nine years ago. Last year, we expanded our company name and product offering to Proof, to support our mission of bringing trust to commerce. 

Now, we're a platform that can sign anything with your identity – whether you need basic eSign, identity-verified signatures, or a notarization. We've been doing online closings since 2017. We've been doing eSign and notarizations when purchasing a car. Customers use our platform to sign everything.

Customers chose our platform because Proof provides more tools to defend against forged documents, synthetic identities, identity fraud and deepfakes. With fraud now attacking every industry, electronic documents and records will be under assault. That’s why we built Defend over the last two years.

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How does Defend detect fraud?

With an AI-based approach to fraud detection, Defend is built into our platform and designed to screen every signature and every transaction. Whether your customer needs to sign, notarize or verify their identity, Defend runs that person’s identity and behavioral data through a comprehensive analysis. Based on the data that we have, we can flag suspicious activity or transactions that might be attempted forgery.

Did your customer just create their email this morning? Are they using a VOIP or pay-as-you-go phone? Are they located in a foreign country but have stated they are based in the US? Is this video in a notary meeting real or a deepfake? These are just a  few variables that could be an indicator of fraud. Defend analyzes hundreds of different signals and uses AI-powered models to determine if that pattern of signals is a risk and needs your attention. No other signature platform can meet this standard. We’ve developed the most advanced anti-forgery detection through partnership with major companies in real estate and financial services.

At any point during the transaction process, you can also export a PDF of the complete identity profile to save with your records as tangible proof that your customer meets your identity verification standards. Or on the flip side, that the individual’s risk profile was too significant to allow them to proceed with a transaction. Not only will you have this for your records for that individual transaction but you will be able to track this user in the event that they return to do business with you again in the future. 

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How do I use Defend? 

Defend is a paid feature that can be enabled seamlessly for any Proof customer. This requires no change to your workflow or integrations, it seamlessly scans every transaction and signature behind the scenes. Here’s how it works.

• Send a transaction as you normally would, whether that’s a document that requires online notarization, identity verification or a basic eSignature. Whether your business uses the web, the API or an EasyLink, Defend will run across all transactions sent through the platform. 
• In the transactions dashboard, you’ll see a new column indicating that Defend successfully scanned every transaction. The resulting transactions flagged as high risk will highlight the transactions that need your attention.

• You will receive a real-time alert via email or webhook when your customer has been flagged as high or medium risk.
• Review the Identity tab for a flagged transaction to understand why a customer transaction was flagged as a risk. For example, there could be indication that this person was signing from a suspicious IP address, or the phone number used and email data presented some risk. As we introduce more signals into the platform, the Identity Tab will be enriched with more data, such as risk for deepfake, forged credential images, etc. 

• You can then save the detailed report on each individual for your records to support your decision to accept or reject the transaction.

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What makes Defend so effective?

With Defend, we don’t just want to give you data, we want to help you make the best possible decisions and take timely action based on that data. Coming soon,  Defend will analyze the behaviors associated with high risk users and make recommendations based on your business’ customizable risk tolerance and specific use cases. Track your customer’s identity profile across multiple touch points to step up (or step down) your verification approach dynamically, and receive real time alerts of suspicious activity. 

Trust Proof to support your business as you take a proactive and hands on approach to protecting your customers, reducing risk, and saving money lost to fraudulent transactions.

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Interested in using Defend? Reach out to our team here.